Requirement for sprinklers in new homes likely to be delayed to 2012

Tony Fleming of Metropolitan Fire Protection shows off his firms line of fire sprinkler systems Wednesday at the Atlantic Builders Convention in the Atlantic City Convention Center.

ATLANTIC CITY — A state mandate that fire
sprinklers be built into every new home will be held off for
another year due to poor economic conditions, the N.J. Fire
Sprinkler Advisory Board said Wednesday at the Atlantic Builders
Convention here.

The new regulations — largely unknown to the public and even
some homebuilders — will require as of Jan. 1, 2012, that every
room of a new home be protected by a fire sprinkler system.

The delay of the mandate to 2012 still must get approvals from
the Department of Community Affairs commissioner and the governor,
both of which are expected.

Advocates of residential fire sprinklers, such as the industry’s
advisory board, say the systems save lives and property, and should
be required in new construction. Builders say they’re costly and
the benefits are questionable enough to leave the decision to
homeowners.

Kent Mezaros, of Quick Response Fire Protection in Manalapan,
Monmouth County, and a member of the Sprinkler Advisory Board, told
the builders convention that combining sprinklers with smoke
detectors reduces the chance of a fire fatality by 82 percent.

He said the sprinkler mandate will result in a societal benefit
of about $5,000 per home each year, most of which results from
valuing the lives saved at $8 million each but also includes
property saved and cheaper insurance.

George Spais, director of codes and services for the New Jersey
Builders Association, doubts that homeowners will embrace
sprinklers and said many are not familiar with them.

Spais said builders are mainly concerned with the cost of
sprinkler systems — estimated by the Sprinkler Advisory Board at 2
percent to 4 percent of a New Jersey home’s total cost, or up to
$10,000 on a $250,000 house.

“It should really be the choice of the homebuyers, whether they
want to have it in their home or not,” Spais said.

Both sides agree sprinklers have an image problem, mainly based
on the mistaken belief that they’ll respond to false alarms and all
go off together, the way linked smoke alarms respond when food is
burned in the kitchen.

“The important thing to remember with sprinkler heads in general
is they’re not going to go off when smoke enters the room. They’re
not going to go off like in the movies when the star pulls the
lever, and they all go off, drenching the entire high rise,” said
Mike Whalen of the state Department of Community Affairs. “These
are heat-activated, and very rarely are you going to have a false
activation.”

A homebuilder in Monmouth County asked what additional features
a sprinkler system might need if the home is using well water
rather than municipal water, which is common in many areas of
southern New Jersey.

Whalen said that depending on the well pump and the availability
of groundwater, the sprinkler system might need a tank storing as
much as 300 gallons to ensure the sprinklers can supply water for
seven to 10 minutes in a fire.

On the exhibit floor in Atlantic City Convention Center, Tyco
Fire Suppression & Building Products of Lansdale, Pa., showed
such a tank along with the pump, piping and sprinkler heads of a
full system.

Sprinkler heads now are flat, 3-inch colored disks flush with
the ceiling, rather than the unsightly metal protrusions of the
past.

Darren Palmieri, product manager for Tyco, said he’s confident
that homeowners will want sprinklers once they realize their
reliability and start hearing about lives saved by them.

He cited an example this year from Warrington, Pa., — which has
required sprinklers in new homes for 20 years — in which boys 6 and
9 were playing with a lamp on a bed, went downstairs for dinner,
and the lamp tipped and set fire to the bed.

“They were having dinner and they said, ‘What’s that smell?’”
Palmieri said. “They went upstairs and found the sprinkler had
already put the fire out.”

But the sprinkler industry realizes it has more work to do
educating and convincing homebuyers.